6th December 2024
Earlier this week, we came together as a health visiting community for the annual iHV Leadership Conference ‘Change for the better: Leading towards a fairer and equitable future’. And what an incredible day it turned out to be! From start to finish, the atmosphere was absolutely buzzing – there is something very special about coming together as the health visiting family from all four corners of the UK. The event was held at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms, Holborn in London, with a packed room of in-person delegates, speakers and exhibitors and many more joining online.
The conference had a stellar line-up of national expert keynote speakers and panellists who skilfully covered an extensive breadth of topics focused on four key “essentials” of good leadership:
- To keep the babies, children, families and communities that we serve at the heart of everything that we do, as we focused on “Leading change, improving health equity” in keynote session 1
- To keep our eyes fixed on the horizon and where we’re heading – in keynote session 2 we heard from our 4 national Chief Nursing Officers (CNO) and Chief Midwifery Officers (CMidO) who discussed “Leading health visiting policy across the UK”
- To drive change, and do it with the evidence – keynote session 3 focused on “Leading through research and evidence-based practice”
- And last, but by no means least, we have to prioritise “our people” – workforce is key to everything that we do – our final keynote session focused on “Leading and equipping the health visiting workforce”
You can read full details of the programme here.
It was an honour and a privilege to be joined by such high profile and eminent speakers who all took time out of their busy schedules to join with us and focus on driving change through health visiting. They all shared powerful messages, with a strong focus on “being the change”, rather than admiring the problem and waiting for others to act.
Rosamund Adoo Kissi- Debrah, the Founder of the Ella Roberta Foundation and a global advocate for clean air, spoke about her young daughter Ella whose life was tragically cut short due to severe asthma linked to air pollution. A stark reminder of the human face of inequalities and a powerful call to action.
During keynote two, we were delighted to have Duncan Burton, CNO for England, Karen Jewell, CMidO for Wales, Justine Craig, CMido for Scotland, and Sonia Glendinning, Nursing Officer for Northern Ireland, join us for our four-nation panel discussion. The CNO/ CMidOs spoke about their different health visiting strategies for each of the four UK nations.
They then joined a conversation with the audience on some of the “big ticket” issues facing our profession – it was a great opportunity for delegates to speak about the realities of practice and share suggestions for change. The session generated lots of comments, suggestions and questions from our audience that the leaders were keen to learn from. We ran out of time to cover everything, so we have downloaded the full Slido chat and shared this with the panel to ensure that all responses are heard. The strength of support for health visiting from our senior leaders was evident and we thank them for their leadership and support. We have so much to learn from each other and across nations!
The conference was packed with many memorable moments, here are just a few other examples (there are too many to mention all of them):
- Professor Charlotte McArdle, Deputy CNO for England, spoke about nurses’ role in health equity and the impact of global climate change on health. “Clean air, pure water, and fertile land are fundamental to nurturing healthy individuals, families, and communities. The choices we make today to safeguard our planet directly impact the health of future generations”
- Acosia Nyanin, Deputy CNO for England – Professional and System Leadership, and Lynne Reed, Deputy Director for 0-19 Clinical Programmes Unit, Chief Public Health Nurse Directorate, Office for Health Improvements and Disparities, who spoke about the power of leadership, with great feedback from delegates: “Acosia, you have inspired me and given me hope. This morning, I felt a little deflated about how far England is behind, however it feels like you and Lynne are listening and leading. Thank you” [delegate feedback on Slido].
- To get us moving and refocused on “why we do what we do”, after lunch Chris Read, singer and songwriter shared his experiences about being the parent to Theo who has Down Syndrome. Chris had captured his “different journey” in a song that he wrote after Theo was born, “Every Atom of You”. Theo then made a special guest appearance and joined Chris in singing “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” with a packed house joining him in the actions. We then finished with everyone singing “What a Wonderful World”. It was a truly magical moment!
- Nicola Taggart was our final keynote speaker and “rising star”. As the winner of the 2024 iHV Student Award, Nicola presented her brilliant innovation to support speech and language development through the “Little Free Library”. Congratulations Nicola! You can read more about Nicola’s innovation here.
The feedback we have received so far is overwhelmingly positive and inspiring with many delegates sharing how much they enjoyed the day:
“Fantastic day listening to passionate & inspirational speakers. Great to network. Feeling energised with lots of ideas to take back: raising the HV profile, retaining our workforce, HV voice needing to shape the 10-year health plan”
“Absolutely awesome… very inspiring and amazing”
“Great venue and refreshments ambient temperature – all make great foundation for a good conference”
“Amazing… it’s given me a real boost – I wish I could have been there in person however it was the best conference ever!”
We would like to extend a huge heartfelt thank you to all our delegates, inspiring speakers, exhibitors and to Novartis for their generous support of our event – without whom this conference would not have been possible.
If you enjoyed our Leadership conference or would love to attend one of our conferences in the future – Please consider joining us on 8 May 2025 for our Evidence-based Practice conference ‘Healthier Beginnings’ in Manchester. Look out for the launch in January, we would love to see you there!
View our gallery of photos here.
